Here’s a bit of artwork I drew for the Donut game’s intro animation. It’s roughly animated so my man Cryptic Circuity can lay down some tunes for it while I tend to other areas of the project. My current focus right now is the top-down driving portion of the game. I should be showing bits of that part soon.

Chris has been touring Europe for the past couple weeks so don’t think the war is over. He’s just been readying the quiet before the storm. I’ve managed to gain some ground on him without having to sabotage his project, but his game was just about ready for a demo release even before he left. Regardless, both of our games are looking top-notch and I look forward to revealing more.

Peace.

Filed under: Donut Get!, Everything, Flash Development, Independent, Sokay Development, Sokay Games by Bryson Whiteman
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Some boards from the Donut game’s intro

I’ve been hustlin’ on the Donut game. In the past month I’ve been busting out on the collision for the car segment and the intro animation for the game.

I’ve been working with the other members of the team — Ricky, David and Cyptic Circuity — to organize our tasks. Ricky’s doing most of the game’s character art and animation, primarily the Car segment and the Donut segment. David’s doing animation for a Fight segment — he did LUV Tank’s in-game animation. Cryptic Circuitry is doing the sound, as he did with Sammy Samurai.

I’ve had an idea of what I’ve wanted for the intro for the game for a long time but I had been conflicted on how I could get the story across without it being too drawn out. As an introduction to the game, I didn’t want the intro animation overshadow the game itself. I also don’t want to devote too much time to it when I have a game to make! I want something that basically says “Here’s your character. Here’s your scenario. Now play!”

I think of my games as interactive animations so I’ll continue to explore this balance. I haven’t made an animation like this in a while but I’m having fun so I may grow accustomed to it.

Filed under: Donut Get!, Everything, Flash Development, Independent, Sokay Development, Sokay Games by Bryson Whiteman
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Some artwork I digitally painted for my Donut game

So I’ve been hard at work on this Sokay stuff but nothing much is ready to show yet. For the past month I’ve been cracking away at a new version of Sokay.net . It’s a bit of a subtle update, but I’m giving each game a profile page. I’m aiming to launch it with the release of Christopher J. Rock’s game, Rush Hour. He finished it a while ago and tried to find a sponsor but ended up starting work on a new game. He’s decided to release Rush Hour as a Sokay game, I’m proud to present it. You can read about it in Chris’ post about it.

I’ve been heavy in the art and interface of the Donut game, on and off for the past few months. I’ve finished most of the menu interface. I’m glad that’s together. Next I’m going to finish up the introduction game. The Donut game is essentially 3 mini-games tied together through a scenario. So far I have 2 of the 3 engines in prototype forms, practically alpha. A lot of the final artwork is in, but the gameplay’s missing a lot of features. I develop games heavily with the artwork in mind, so I tend to do more of the artwork upfront, which is the reverse of what many developers would recommend. I think they’re probably just more programmer oriented, rather than visually.

Here’s a sketch I drew for the game. Most of the art starts off like this.

So we continue, one step at a time. I look forward to showing ya’ll another game. It’s what I live for.

Peace.

Filed under: Donut Get!, Everything, Flash Development, Independent, Sokay Development, Sokay Games by Bryson Whiteman
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Indiecade 2010 is a comin! Deadline for submission: June 1, 2010

I read about Indiecade accepting submissions for the 2010 game festival on Gamasutra. If  you read this blog, you might know that we went to last year’s Indiecade and had a good time. I told Chris and he’s down for action! He wants to submit his upcoming game. I think it’s unannounced…

I see this as a threat. He may be my friend, something of an ally, but I will never let him make me look like a chump by outclassing me at Indiecade. Never!

So I now announce that we are at War.

This ain’t no East Coast/West Coast thing. We’re both representing Los Angeles, no problem there. Nobody’s getting killed. This war is more of an arbitrary goal to provoke motivation, sorta like Obama’s car MPG requirements for 2016.

Chris’ game is looking great. It’s a physics based puzzle game, he’s doing all the art and coding as well. In addition, there will be some procedurally generated music. This guy is nuts, but it works. A demo for it is coming soon.

I’ve been forever working on my Donut game. It’s looking great but I’ve been neglecting it because I’ve been doing long hours on a game I’m doing for my day job. And I’ve been working on an update to the Sokay.net site. When things get back on track, I’m gonna knock it out.

Filed under: Donut Get!, Everything, Flash Gaming, Independent, Sokay Development, Sokay Games, Video Games by Bryson Whiteman
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It’s not apparent from reading this blog, but we’re actively in production of this Donut Game that I first mentioned here over 2 years ago. But you know what they say, “Time flies when you’re having fun!”

For a preview I’m just showing some line art from the game. Currently, this art is already painted and imported into the game. The background is my handywork and Ricky did the characters. (more…)

Filed under: Donut Get!, Everything, Sokay Development, Sokay Games by Bryson Whiteman
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Play it at www.sammysamurai.com

In late November of 2008 I found a forum post on Flashkit that linked to a contest from Mochiads. I wasn’t too excited about the prizes, the runner-up prizes were almost a joke, but I saw this as an opportunity to rush and actually finish something. Winning would be a plus. I hadn’t released a Sokay game in 2008 so I felt it was my last chance.

So I wanted to plan something that I would be able to finish within a month. That meant it had to be a lot simpler than my usual grandiose visions. I passed up on the opportunity to work with the Donut game I’ve been working on because there was a lot of animation that needed to done that I didn’t want to think about.

I had recently been inspired by the Studio Ghibli film Tales from Earthsea. I didn’t think the movie was very good but it has some awesome background design and a few shots had some excellent parallax scrolling going on. The parallax shots were very quick but captured my attention. Thanks to digital compositing they were able to blend many layers without making it obvious where one layer ended and another began. (more…)

Filed under: Donut Get!, Everything, Flash Development, Flash Gaming, Postmortem, Sokay Development, Sokay Games by Bryson Whiteman
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Here are some NPCs from the Sokay Donut game I’ve been working on for forever. These characters are designed by our character designer Ricky Enriquez. I spent a couple days converting the game to AS3 in late May. Since then I’ve been polishing some things and working on getting the NPCs in it. I’ve been concentrating a bit too much on the presentation of the game and have returned to focusing on the gameplay, since it’s still not fully there yet. Right now I’m working on finding the fun, but it’s looking great so far.

This is a background concept I sketched out for a new project we started, a game that Chris is programming. It’s a Western so it’s gonna be a lotta fun.

Beyond this stuff I’ve been reworking the blog — I added the little video jukebox in the top right corner. I’m revising some of the other Sokay sites, experimenting with new ideas. I’m working with David Rodriguez on a more elaborate Luvtank.com as well.

Read on to see what’s been inspring me lately…

(more…)

Filed under: Donut Get!, Everything, Sokay Development, Sokay Games, Video Games by Bryson Whiteman
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I’ve been putting some work into a new game in the past few weeks. It’s a game that takes place within the Thugjacker world. You’re not playing as Deebone, as you might expect. Instead you play as a rogue police officer with his mind set on one thing. Donuts. Donuts falling from the sky.

This is a background sketch I drew for the game. I’m vectorizing it now and shall paint it after I’m finished with that. As usual, I’m doing the programming and background design with this game. Ricky’s working on some character designs so he should be passing them my way soon.

As anyone who’s played any of our games before should know, this game’s gonna be a bit different. Good times

Filed under: Donut Get!, Everything, Sokay Development, Sokay Games by Bryson Whiteman
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